Battlefords Provincial Park. (battlefordsNOW file photo)

By Susan McNeil

Land deal

Saulteaux FN fight over Battlefords Provincial Park ends with Supreme Court dismissal

Feb 12, 2025 | 3:49 PM

The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an application from the Saulteaux First Nation (SFN) regarding the transfer of land that became the Battlefords Provincial Park.

In 1960, SFN surrendered 207 acres of waterfront land on Jackfish Lake in exchange for 4,970 acres of Crown land near Birch and Helene Lakes and $20,000.

Decades later, they asked the Specific Claims Tribunal to consider their argument that the deal should not have happened and was exploitive. The Tribunal did not agree and neither did the Federal Court. Now the Supreme Court has ended the matter.

When the SFN first began its legal battle, the Tribunal hearing lasted six days with multiple experts testifying, including five oral history witnesses and other experts.

Members of the SFN had been living, fishing and hunting on the shores of Jackfish Lake for decades. Their legal title sprang out of a 1922 federal order in council, but the province had long been eyeing up the location as a good spot for recreation.

Town Hall Reno

Renovations to Battleford Town Hall office space approved for $100K

4h ago

Senior Hockey

Neilburg wins first SPHL title over defending league champions

7h ago

MOU

Town votes in favour of signing regional arena MOU

7h ago

In 1947, Premier Tommy Douglas wrote the federal government saying that SFN wanted to transfer their residence from Jackfish Lake to Birch Lake.

He claimed in the letter that he had a petition from the band members to that effect, but the document has never been found.

Over the next decade and a half, the province would raise the possibility again and again. It commissioned two reports in the early and mid 1950s that both recommended that the best area for recreational development in the Meadow Lake/Battlefords area were the two pieces of waterfront property owned by the SFN.

Cottage development was already happening on the parts of Jackfish that were not owned by SFN.

Discussion ensued with the band, but documents showed the SFN was not interested in selling – although they would lease. They were concerned about access for fishing.

By the late 1950s, evidence showed that Chief Alex Katcheech and Councillors John Swimmer and Jim Moccasin had agreed to negotiate with the province for the sale of land on the shore of Jackfish Lake.

The province would get the two titles on the lake and the band would get $20,000 and over 4,000 acres of land near Helene and Birch Lakes. Mineral rights would be included for a section of land to even out what they were giving up.

A trail running northeast through one section was to stay in place, giving the province access to the provincial forest.

Band members would have equal use of the land they were giving up as the general public.

SFN had a band meeting in early 1960 to take a vote of members on the proposed trade.

Minutes show that the band council chose an interpreter to translate both ways and no one objected to the person chosen. The terms of the deal were read aloud and translated, and the people were asked if they understood or had questions.

The final vote was 52 in favour with eight people opposed. Those 60 people constituted more than 51 per cent of the members. The band council then executed the surrender form.

After hearing the testimony, the Claims Tribunal ruled that when the deal was struck, the band members at the time understood the terms of the exchange and the deal was not exploitive.

The legal concept of minimal impairment often applied in Indigenous land claims did not apply because it was not an appropriation, it was an exchange.

—

susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social